


Make Your Own Mark (On The World)

by QuoteMyFoot



Series: Naruto AU Week [6]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Ambiguous Soulmarks, Fate & Destiny, Friendship, Gen, OR IS IT, Platonic Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 06:00:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29431356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuoteMyFoot/pseuds/QuoteMyFoot
Summary: Soulmarks symbolise the impact another soul had on you, in this life or another. Nothing more and nothing less.Team 7 all bear Marks, but what really matters is what they make of them.Day 7: Soulmates
Relationships: Dai-nana-han | Team 7 & Haruno Sakura, Dai-nana-han | Team 7 & Hatake Kakashi, Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto
Series: Naruto AU Week [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2151003
Comments: 2
Kudos: 38
Collections: Naruto AU Week 2021





	Make Your Own Mark (On The World)

A soul is not a constant thing. It shifts and alters in life, in each subsequent life, as it is shaped again and again by the world around it.

Sometimes, though—sometimes a person makes such an impact on a soul in one life that it leaves a Mark; this Mark the soul carries into all its subsequent lives, an indelible recording of this meeting, which cannot be altered or removed.

This means, of course, that a Mark on the soul is something that can be made, and not simply borne.

*

Sasuke is born with the Mark of a spiral. Mikoto is pleased, both by the extraordinary past life this implies, and by the symbol itself, which is the sign of her best friend’s clan.

“Isn’t it marvellous?” she says. “I wonder if Naruto will be born with a Mark too. Perhaps our sons were best friends in a past life!”

Kushina is equally enthused by the idea, but she never sees the Soulmark on Naruto’s lower back before she dies defending him.

Naruto grows up thinking about his Mark a lot. Surely it must’ve been someone who loved him in a past life, he thinks. A sibling, a friend, a girlfriend or boyfriend—someone who loved him too much, and that’s why he doesn’t have anyone like that now. He used it all up.

 _It doesn’t matter,_ he thinks. _I’ll work hard and become Hokage and everyone will like me, even if they don’t love me._

Sasuke doesn’t think about his Mark, or at least he tries his best not to. It doesn’t matter if he had anyone in the past – he’s alone now. For all he knows it was a great enemy, and he and Itachi were always destined to be like this. The brother he knew was a lie even before they were born.

Neither will realise their Soulmarks match until the very end, but that’s okay. The souls who bear these Marks are always destined to find each other—but Naruto and Sasuke learned what it was to be truly alone before they found each other, and in so doing, learned to defeat their destiny.

*

Soulmarks are not just borne but made. Kakashi is bare-skinned when he is born, when he makes genin and chunin and jonin, when he joins a team under Minato-sensei with dependable Rin and useless crybaby Obito.

Obito is crushed by the rocks. Obito gives him a gift. Obito gives him a Mark.

In the palm of his dominant hand, where _Chidori_ always forms, there is a single tomoe in red. Or at least, Kakashi describes it as a tomoe, but at times it looks more like a teardrop. With the passing Rin and Minato-sensei, he gains two more. Some people, as much as we love them, only mark us with pain.

Kakashi understands, or so he thinks. Three bloody teardrops for the people he failed. Mourning and recrimination all in one.

He only understands because the Mark is what he made it.

Kakashi’s other hand is plain. It is plain until Sasuke leaves, when he notices some familiar bells in the palm of his hand. Not two, this time, but three. Kakashi clenches his fist. He understands the contrast. For these kids, for _this_ team, there is still a chance. He can’t let them down like he did the previous Team Seven.

Because he understands it this way, there _is_ still a chance.

*

Sakura is born an ordinary soul with no Marks whatsoever. Not everyone can have such incredible feats in their past lives, after all. She’s disappointed as she grows older, of course. A Soulmark would imply the kind of grand, epic romance she would like to have with Sasuke. _Ino_ has a Mark—although there’s no proof whatsoever that it has anything to do with Sasuke, Sakura is always quick to point out when Ino tries to brag about it.

She supposes it’s to be expected, since Ino comes from an old and proud shinobi family, older even than the founding of Konoha. Of course she would have a Mark, to go with the special clan techniques, the perfect beauty, everything.

All the same, Sakura won’t lose to her.

Sakura makes this vow to herself, but she keeps waiting. Waiting for the extraordinary to happen to _her_. Her own special techniques, her own key event, her own Mark…

She waits. After the bell test, nothing. After Wave, nothing. After the Chunin Exam, nothing. Sakura wishes desperately for something to happen, to be significant. It doesn’t come. She is not special.

Then Sasuke is about to leave, and Sakura has no way of stopping him or any way of compelling him to stay. She has only herself. She cries and begs and promises him all she had—but she has only herself, no Mark or techniques or destiny, and it isn’t enough.

(To be offered everything—for Sasuke, it’s too much. He can’t.)

Sakura is left behind and she snaps. _Screw this. Screw all of this._ Maybe she isn’t enough but she has to be able to do more than she can right now. She makes Tsunade train her, she makes herself work and grow strong. She won’t let anyone leave her because she’s too weak _ever again._

She works so hard that she doesn’t notice the cherry blossom tree blooming on the inside of her upper arm. She assumes it is for Sasuke, or maybe for her teacher, Tsunade, and doesn’t pay the Mark much attention. Sakura has work to do and a teammate to save. The Mark can wait.

So she never notices that every technique mastered and every battle won adds another tiny petal to her cherry blossom tree. By the time she dies it will always look like it is in full bloom, at the very height of spring, a symbol of renewal and power. It will bloom in all her subsequent lives, again and again.

It is by Sakura’s will alone that she makes herself extraordinary.

*

A Mark is not a prophecy. You always make your own destiny.

Team Seven made theirs with each other.

**Author's Note:**

> All kinds of comments loved and appreciated; concrit, I didn't like x, this reminded me of y, z was very cool--any thoughts are welcome and valuable.


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